By Dave Hurteau

On a recent turkey hunt at Dos Plumas Hunting Ranch in northwestern Nebraska, Tim Kent of Theory 13 Creative introduced F&S contributor Jace Bauserman and me to Flextone’s newest Thunder Series turkey calls. On the first evening, someone—I’m not saying who—took one out of the packaging, started calling, and sounded exactly like this poor, terrified cat.

“Oh well,” I figured, “just another bad-sounding, gimmicky turkey call.” Turns out, it was just the caller, not the call, and he recovered right quickly, because like the Thunder Gobble, introduced last spring, the new Thunder hen calls are extremely easy to learn how to blow, and once you get the hang of them, they sound pretty darn good—certainly good enough to fool a gobbler.

By Dave Hurteau

The online magazine Slate recently posted the rare positive article about hunting, for which I commend them. Its bottom line is that the “expansion of hunting into liberal, urban circles is the latest development in an evolving and increasingly snug coexistence between humans and beasts in North America” as the “bearded, bicycle-riding, locavore set” concludes that it is “more responsible and ecologically sound to eat an animal that was raised wild and natural in [the] local habitat….”

By Dave Hurteau

Yes this is Whitetail365, and I know that the spring turkey season is either over or nearly so depending on where you hunt. But most of you whitetail nuts are also turkey hunters, and it’s never too late to become a better caller. So here’s a quick video (in truth it goes on a bit too long, sorry) describing two ways to yelp on a mouth call, as shown to me by a couple of damn good callers.

By Dave Hurteau

I recently got back from a Louisiana turkey hunt with Synergy Outdoors, the umbrella company of Evolved Harvest, Barnett Crossbows, Flextone Game Calls, Wildgame Innovations, and Wildgame Nation TV. It was a very good hunt as these things go, partly because of the generosity of the hosts and the cooperation of the birds, but mostly because the company reps showed me some honest-to-goodness innovative and useful new products that I can pass along to you without feeling like I’m shilling as payback—which they know I won’t do.

Anyway, we’ll save that for another blog.

For now, I’d rather talk about hunting with a guide, which is commonplace on industry hunts. There’s no question that I would much rather kill a critter on my own--especially a turkey; if I don’t call the bird in myself, I don’t feel like I earned it. That’s why if anyone asks me if I killed a bird in Louisiana, I say no, but my guide, "Mike Miller the Turkey Killer," shown here with his camouflage bible and the bird in question, certainly did, even though I fired the shot.